Sturgis moves on

Monday

Mar 4, 2013 at 11:10 PMMar 4, 2013 at 11:12 PM

Trojans top Edwardsburg

Tom Mielcarek

“You can’t stop him.”

The Sturgis fans chanted it several times Monday night about Chance Stewart and they were prophetic as the junior forward pounded in a career-high 32 points to help the Trojans get past the host Edwardsburg squad, 54-37, in the first round of the Class B districts.

“We wanted to establish our identity early on getting the ball inside to Chance,” Trojan coach Keith Kurowski said. “We wanted to get our offense going in the first half.”

Stewart, who also collected 20 rebounds, was pleased to hear the game plan.

“I like it when coach says that we’re going to get the ball inside,” he said. “It was working, so we kept going inside.”

And on the defensive side, Sturgis slowed down the Eddies big gun, Josh Kozinski, holding him to 10 points.

“The team did a great job on Josh Kozinski,” Kurowski said. “He’s a D1 player (Central Michigan signee) that came in averaging about 23 points a game. He was not going to beat us. We forced him in to tough. I’m proud of the team ‘D’ and the effort of Carl (Limburg) and Eduardo (Portillo).”

The Trojans advance to the second semifinal game Wednesday against Paw Paw.

The 6 p.m. opener has Three Rivers taking on Vicksburg.

“A really big win for us,” Kurowski said. “They only had one loss, to Dowagiac, on their homecourt. Both teams were physical. To get wins on the road, you have to show toughness for 32 minutes. We need to keep the momentum going.”

Sturgis went inside early and often as Stewart scored the Trojans first 10 points. Limburg, getting his first varsity start with Sturgis, scored on a layup at the buzzer off a feed from Jalen Cox as Sturgis held a 12-4 lead after one quarter.

“I have confidence in Carl,” Kurowski said. “His dad in a coach in Germany. He came through big for us tonight.”

The Trojans built the lead to 19-8 just past the midpoint of the second quarter, but Edwardsburg scored the final six points of the period to close the gap to 19-14 at halftime.

“The press they put on in the second quarter gave us some problems,” Stewart said. “But we figured it out and regrouped in the second half.”

The Eddies’ Patrick Harvey opened the third quarter with a long jumper, but Sturgis answered with a 3-pointer by Patrick Haas with Cox picking up another assist.

The lead stayed in the four to six range the balance of the quarter and after Haas hit a putback basket late, the Trojans led 32-26 going into the final period.

A three-point play by Stewart with 4:49 to go got the Trojan lead back into double-digits, 39-29. Moments later, Stewart hit another pair, he was 9-for-9 in the fourth quarter from the line, and Sturgis started to pull away.

“We’ve been shooting a lot of free throws,” Stewart said. “It’s paying off, because we were hitting them in the fourth quarter.”

He finished 14-for-17 from the line with all the misses coming in the first half.

“Down the stretch we handled their press and made foul shots,” Kurowski said.

Portillo finished with six points for the Trojans, Haas tallied five, Cox notched four, Limburg added three and Tyler Bennett and Jack Scheske each had two.

Freshman Dante Razzano also tossed in 10 points for the Eddies, Harvey ended with six, Jason Schimpa and Matt Griesinger each scored four, Eric Richardson added three and Jackson Gaideski had two.

On the glass, Cox and Haas each added five rebounds. Cox dished four assists and Haas added three. Bennett and Stewart each had three steals, while Stewart also had a pair of blocks.